Spoilers ahead! Do not read if you have not seen tonight’s final episode of The Americans.

It was always going to be painful to say dasvidaniya to the Jennings family, even though every scene of The Americans’s final season was riddled with prickly reminders that the jig would soon be up. Philip and Elizabeth (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) were Soviet sleeper spies who just happened to live next door to F.B.I. counter-intelligence agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich). Their lives as suburban Americans were a grand performance—one that had already begun crumbling for Philip who, at the start of this final season, tried to secede from spying, while Elizabeth pulled their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) deeper into the tangled spiderweb of deception.

At the core of the FX series was the toll that Philip and Elizabeth’s line of work took on their marriage, with each episode a stress test on the proposition that the couple that slays together stays together. Despite the compartmentalization techniques they learned in their spy training, Philip—and to a lesser extent, Elizabeth—couldn’t help enmeshing themselves in poignant, hopelessly human ways with the people they used—coming to care for the dying artist Erica, in Elizabeth’s case, or for duped lovers like Martha and the teenage Kimberly, in Philip’s. Even Stan, the enemy next door, became Philip’s best friend, as he admits in a heart-wrenching scene in the finale.

As the series approached its tense ending, the cost that the Jenningses have paid for a life of self-sacrifice (to a higher cause the viewer knows is headed toward history’s dustbin) becomes clear. We saw it in their faces—the ghostly pallor, the furrows of worry—and in the heap of cigarette butts left behind the now chain-smoking Elizabeth. As they abandoned an entire life, and practically all human ties apart from their own perilously frayed relationship, Russell and Rhys delivered haunting performances, particularly in the show’s very last scene: Philip and Elizabeth stand on the precipice of an uncertain future, as Elizabeth’s steely note of resignation—“We’ll get used to it”—hovers in the gray Russian breeze.

Before the finale, Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, the show’s executive producers, got on the phone to talk us through the betrayals, brutality, and dramatic loose ends in this climactic last season of a contemporary TV classic.

Vanity Fair: The moment the Jenningses realize they’re going to have to leave Henry behind forever is really horrifying on many levels. It felt like the culmination, in some ways, of this self-sacrifice that they’ve put themselves through.

Joel Fields: We felt like this really was, ultimately, as romantically tragic an ending as they could experience. Joe and I are both parents, and what could be worse than having to leave your children behind forever?

Why, in your minds, does Paige decide to stay in the U.S., rather than escape to Russia with her parents?

Joe Weisberg: We want people to sort of run that through their own minds. To the degree that they want to come up with concrete answers—fine. Maybe they just want to leave it alone and feel it—fine. But we don’t want to put our stamp on that too precisely.

Did you ever play with a scenario in which Stan turns them in, or were you pretty set on this path?

Fields: On the one hand, this ending we’ve had in mind since the end of Season 1, beginning of Season 2. On the other hand, although we plan a lot and we often stick to our plan, we are really enthusiastic about throwing the plan out the window when a better possibility comes along. And I’d say, on this finale, we experimented with all sorts of different versions of the story, but this is really the one we started with, and this is the one that felt right all along to us.

I loved how in an earlier season, Stan flirts with E.S.T., and Philip kind of dives into it. At the end, Philip says that if Stan had stayed in E.S.T., he would have known what to do. What do you think E.S.T. ultimately did for Philip?

Weisberg: Initially, we were in the writers’ room looking for something for Sandra Beeman—to give something to her character to make her more alive and interesting, in a way. And the room came up with the idea that she should go to E.S.T. It was period-appropriate and seemed perfect for her. And then that kind of ballooned to the idea that, “Well, Stan should go with her” . . . Stan wasn’t going to probably take to it too much, but then we had the idea, “Well, he should take Philip.”

That answered a question we’d had from the beginning of the series. We knew Philip was going to be emotionally and culturally evolving a lot faster than Elizabeth was ever going to, but we didn’t really have any means to express it . . . So E.S.T. was the vehicle for Philip to evolve, and it was a conscious process for him.

We’re rooting for Philip and Elizabeth all along, but in the last few episodes of the series, they commit increasingly brutal, ruthless acts. Were you almost daring viewers to keep sympathizing with them?

Fields: We were just trying to tell the most honest version of their story that we could. And in a way, we were interested in putting the pressure on Elizabeth, and her character, and seeing how that impacted her marriage, and her relationship with her country, and her job, and her family more than anything else. I think that’s what we’ve really been playing with, particularly this season.

I saw a lot of people this season speculating that you were setting Elizabeth up to get killed.

Weisberg: Almost from the beginning of the show, we have a lot of experience with people thinking, “Philip’s going to get killed. Elizabeth’s going to get killed. Nina’s going to get killed. Martha’s going to get killed . . . for this reason or for that reason.” The truth is, we always sort of enjoyed that because—I don’t mean this in a mean way—but you want to be ahead of the audience, because they’re going to have a better experience.

You definitely kept us guessing, though I think it was rather cruel that you’ve left us wondering about Renee. We still don’t know if she’s a spy or not.

Fields: Well, less cruel to you than to Stan.

Exactly! Could there be a spin-off with Renee and Martha and Claudia?

Weisberg: I think we’re pretty devoted to no spin-offs.

Damn. All right. Well, I guess people will just have to turn to fan fiction.

Fields: Yes! That we look forward to reading.

One element of the show is the Jenningses’ belief, at least to begin with, that what they’re doing is going to change the world for the better. But here we are in 2018, and we know how glasnost worked out, and how it led to the present. How much did you think about contemporary politics?

Fields: Certainly, belief is among the themes we were exploring, but we weren’t thinking of the contemporary reality at all. In fact, I think the show all along has only worked to the extent that it’s rooted in its time frame and not looking outside of it. The whole end of the series is predicated on Philip and Elizabeth not being able to imagine what the future holds . . . They could never have a vision that there’s a different Russia coming, an end of the U.S.S.R.

The summit referenced throughout the final season was real. Was the group trying to undermine perestroika also based on research?

Weisberg: At the time, in 1987, that we’re talking about, there was already concentrated and probably growing opposition to Gorbachev, including inside and at the very top of the K.G.B., that coalesced into a coup . . . So the opposition that we’re talking about was there, but the coup machinations that we posit in the show and our secret history was not actualized until later.

In the final episodes, there is a conversation between Paige and Elizabeth about sex, and what Elizabeth is willing to do for her work. Elizabeth says, “What was sex? Nobody cared.” In the first season, we learn that she had been raped by her handler. Was this conversation meant to suggest a sense of horror dawning on her? It feels like she’s kind of waking up in these final episodes.

Weisberg: I don’t think we thought of it exactly in those terms. . . Now that you say that, it’s something I think is worth thinking about. That speech you’re referring to . . . is something that we would describe as her feelings about sex and using sex in spycraft from the beginning, and really, probably, irrespective of the rape—probably having to do with things about how she was raised, and how she moved into this job, and what they taught her in this job . . . I think everything she said to Paige about the use of sex was essentially true, and has a kind of a history in the long, liberal, Communist ideology and their attitudes about sex, which were then picked up by the K.G.B. and taught to the officers . . . If you take the damage that is done to a person by internalizing that in the first place, it’s probably pretty intense. But if then the powers that be ask you to internalize that, and then on top of that you’re raped by an authority figure in that power structure, then you could probably take any damage done by that and multiply it a hundredfold.

How are Paige and Henry going to get on in the world without their parents? And did you look to real-life examples of children who discovered their parents were spies?

Weisberg: What goes on for them from here on out is, in a way, not our business. We came up with this ending before we knew about—have you seen the story about the kids in Canada who are trying to get their Canadian citizenship back, and what’s happened with their family? It’s just emotionally devastating and very resonant.

Do you still consider Philip and Elizabeth heroes rather than antiheroes?

Fields: An antihero is somebody who’s doing something out of selfish motivations or sociopathology. But these are people—we may not agree with their beliefs or with the cause to which they’ve devoted themselves, but they’ve sacrificed an enormous amount to be soldiers in this struggle for what they believe is right.

Rope (1948)

“From a Cuban perspective, it is [about] the corruption of the ruling class,” says curator Carol A. Wells, of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. “Here you have these two guys with the best education possible, and what do they do with it? They don’t try to make society better; they try to commit the perfect murder.”

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

The Shining (1980)

Like other Cuban silk screens, this poster homes in on a fairly innocuous—though wholly memorable—prop from the movie it’s advertising. For Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, artist Raúl Valdés chose to depict Danny’s red tricycle and some blood-stained tracks.

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Moby Dick (1956)

Designed more than a decade after the film’s release, Antonio Fernández Reboiro’s poster for John Huston’s Moby Dick is rooted in late 60s psychedelia. It’s a surrealist take on a movie filled with dark and choppy hues.

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

“Why did [Cubans] want to watch Singin’ in the Rain? What’s revolutionary about Singin’ in the Rain?” says Wells. “It’s entertaining, it’s fun. If you try to put yourself in Cuban shoes for a second, a lot of the films will give a view of the United States you don’t necessarily see.”

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Cabaret (1972)

Artist Claudio Sotolongo uses art deco imagery for a quiet, minimalist take on the Liza Minnelli love-triangle musical centered on a cabaret performer in 1930s Berlin.

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Nelson Ponce Sánchez’s propaganda-esque silk screen, featuring a brain wearing the iconic Droog bowler hat hovering over a juicer, is an entertaining, on-the-nose look into the madness and misery of Kubrick’s film.

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968)

This film centers on a virus that makes people deliriously happy. Soon, though, it also causes the economy to collapse as people stop buying drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and stocks. “The government vaccinates everybody against it,” says Wells. “What a parable for socialism— [though] I am sure [the filmmakers] didn’t mean that.”

Photo: Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Rope (1948)

“From a Cuban perspective, it is [about] the corruption of the ruling class,” says curator Carol A. Wells, of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. “Here you have these two guys with the best education possible, and what do they do with it? They don’t try to make society better; they try to commit the perfect murder.”

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

The Shining (1980)

Like other Cuban silk screens, this poster homes in on a fairly innocuous—though wholly memorable—prop from the movie it’s advertising. For Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, artist Raúl Valdés chose to depict Danny’s red tricycle and some blood-stained tracks.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Moby Dick (1956)

Designed more than a decade after the film’s release, Antonio Fernández Reboiro’s poster for John Huston’s Moby Dick is rooted in late 60s psychedelia. It’s a surrealist take on a movie filled with dark and choppy hues.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

“Why did [Cubans] want to watch Singin’ in the Rain? What’s revolutionary about Singin’ in the Rain?” says Wells. “It’s entertaining, it’s fun. If you try to put yourself in Cuban shoes for a second, a lot of the films will give a view of the United States you don’t necessarily see.”

Marilyn Monroe in Memoriam (1967)

“She wasn’t a dumb blonde; she was extremely intelligent, but she was also very left,” says Wells of Marilyn Monroe—one of the few Hollywood stars whose face appeared on a Cuban silk screen, as it does here for a documentary about her life and career.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

The cult Joan Crawford-Bette Davis film, about an aging starlet who holds her sister hostage, gets a very colorful interpretation in this René Azcuy-design silk screen, which manages to capture Jane’s past as a happy child performer and her eventual downfall as an old murderer deliriously twirling on the beach.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Modern Times (1936)

“Chaplin is a huge hero in Cuba,” says Wells. “They named their main theater after Charlie Chaplin.” One of the very first films Cuba would show during its mobile cinema events was the silent film star’s Modern Times.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Cabaret (1972)

Artist Claudio Sotolongo uses art deco imagery for a quiet, minimalist take on the Liza Minnelli love-triangle musical centered on a cabaret performer in 1930s Berlin.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Nelson Ponce Sánchez’s propaganda-esque silk screen, featuring a brain wearing the iconic Droog bowler hat hovering over a juicer, is an entertaining, on-the-nose look into the madness and misery of Kubrick’s film.

Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968)

This film centers on a virus that makes people deliriously happy. Soon, though, it also causes the economy to collapse as people stop buying drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and stocks. “The government vaccinates everybody against it,” says Wells. “What a parable for socialism— [though] I am sure [the filmmakers] didn’t mean that.”